A Review Update and My Washington Adventures!

So I know the KIRBC has been a little light on the reviews lately, and I’ve got my excuses ready:

1. My modem is fried and I haven’t had home Internet for the past two weeks (An amusing social experiment for a day or two, but severely inconvenient after that.)
2. My schedule is fried with travel and various social engagements. I escaped to the bush to work at an Algonquin Park summer camp the weekend before last, and this past weekend was shared between my Grammy’s wedding and my departure for Washington, D.C., for the American Library Association Annual Conference! (More on the wonders of Washington and librarians below.)

With three more weddings coming up in the next four weeks, the forecast for blog writing looks a little bleak, but here’s hoping if I announce my review goals here I be able to pick the bones of my schedule and come up with some tasty review morsels. Despite the fact that the reviews have been a little slow in coming, I’ve read a lot of great things lately, and will try to write about most of them. Things you’ll find here in the next couple weeks:

• Books in 140 Seconds as per usual. Tomorrow we’ll be talking about Jessica Grant’s delightful Come, Thou Tortoise at 1:40 EST!
• A few words on Shelley Hrdlitschka’s splendid YA novel Sister Wife (an excellent first-time KIRBC recommendation from Julia at last week’s meeting).
• Some musings on the envy-inducing essays of Sloane Crosley’s latest collection, Where Did You Get This Number.
• And lastly, an in-depth review of Kathleen Winter’s haunting novel Annabel, to be accompanied by the KIRBC’s first giveaway and an interview with the author on July 13th!

Now a little more about my weekend in America’s capital city. As I mentioned, I was heading down to man the ECW booth at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference. Now, prior to this, my only conference experience was at the now-defunct Book Expo Canada (and in the year it was discreetly coughing blood into its hankie at that), so I was pretty floored by the magnitude of this affair. The logistics alone blew my mind, though I should have known that if anyone could handle processing and organizing all that data, it’d be an organization of librarians. Sadly I couldn’t see any of the phenomenal guest speakers who included Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Junot Diaz, and Audrey Niffenegger (and others, those are just the ones that had my heart beating double-time), but I did get to walk the floor of the exhibit hall (where publishers and library vendors have their booths), and that in itself was pretty exciting. I also got to spend a couple days talking to librarians, which, aside from all the standing involved, is a pretty great way to spend your time. Though I’ll admit that within this hive of librarian activity, I felt a few pangs for my shadow career, the other one I’m I could have chosen and been happy in (not that I’m jumping from the good ship Publishing or anything).

Those feelings reached a fever pitch when I visited the Library of Congress – not only because it’s housed in a breathtaking Italian Renaissance–style building, but because it’s a place that deeply venerates learning in any number of forms. It has a collection of 142 million items, making it what they call, “the world’s largest repository of knowledge and creativity.” The same place that purchased a rare vellum Gutenberg Bible is also engaged in an impressive digitization project and has decided to keep an archive of all the tweets that ever were and will be. They also have fantastic digital exhibits and tool onsite so that you can flip through the pages of the Gutenburg onscreen, learn more about architectural details in the room, or follow the creation of the Declaration of Independence. You can even get a passport that allows you to bookmark certain items of interest and explore them further at home.

I took a few photos, though unfortunately I couldn’t take any of the spectacular reading room or the exhibit of Thomas Jefferson’s Library (which he sold to Congress to replace the books lost when the British burned the Capitol building in 1812).

Visiting the library was easily the highlight of my Washington experience, and highly recommended if you find yourself over that way. Guided tours are free and run every hour starting from 10:30-3:30 Monday to Saturday (and there are virtual tours for people who can’t make the trip). I’m not a particularly religious person, but the LOC might be the closest thing to a place of worship that I find.